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Ascent of the Ferramenta
"Just robots? I remember the last time someone said that..." Doctor Ascent of the Ferramenta is the second episode of Season Two of the fan film series Doctor Who: The 11th Regeneration and the thirteenth story overall. It stars Jaime Carroll as the Doctor and Laura Massingham as companion Grace Thompson. Synopsis The Doctor and Grace arrive on the planet Ferra, in the far future. A human colony halfway across the Mutter's Spiral, Ferra is under constant attack from terrorists, but the Prime Minister has found a new way to fight back... Plot The TARDIS materialises on the planet Ferra, a human colony somewhere in the far future. Grace steps out and immediately demands the Doctor take her back home. When he refuses, she begins to taunt him using the Time Lord’s memories she received when she opened the fob watch in Saving Grace. Suddenly there is an explosion at a nearby building and a space car zooms by to investigate. In a second explosion the car is blown up as well. Out of nowhere two men in balaclavas attack the Doctor and kidnap Grace. The Doctor shouts her name in vain as a space car flees with her on board… In the space car one of the kidnappers introduces himself as the young Sergeant Will Silvertongue, and apologises for taking her, having believed her and the Doctor to be terrorists. Will explains that the Ferras are at war with the other colonies in the Empire, and the Ferra King has stopped immigration from the colonies, for fear of terrorism. The Ferras are scared, and after the attack on the building earlier, they have good reason to be. Grace begins to warm to Will. Talking about her first kidnapper, Grace realises she will have to find the Doctor, but before she has the chance to the car arrives at its destination. The Doctor manages to track down Grace using her phone, and the two reunite outside the office of the Ferran Prime Minister. The Doctor is introduced to Will and the Doctor immediately takes a dislike to him, for unknown reasons. This leads to a bitter argument between the two, and the Time Lord is extremely chuffed when Will does not enter the office of the Prime Minister with the Doctor and Grace. The Doctor and his companion enter the Prime Minister’s office, unannounced, immediately earning the politician’s ire. The Doctor has come here because of the propaganda posters he saw earlier. He suspects the Prime Minister is up to something. He’s not wrong. He realises that Ferra has become a dictatorship again, ‘just like before’. The Doctor deduces that Ferra is in a war with the other colonies in the Empire. The Empire prides itself on its democracy, and having a major flagship world like Ferra become oppressed by a dictator is not going to go down well. The attacks earlier were the work of pro-democrats. At this point Will comes in through the Prime Minister’s computer to say how happy the Ferras are under the dictatorship. The Doctor refuses to believe that and thinks he is trying to trick him. He snaps at Will and at Grace when she tries to protest his honesty. The Prime Minister says that the Doctor’s grudge with Will is misplaced and that he is not responsible for his father’s actions. Will says he hates his father for what he did. At this point Grace asks what the hell is going on. The Doctor explains that Will comes from a long line of imperialists, where betrayal ran in their bloods. Will’s father, Lord Xavier Silvertongue, had Ferra under a dictatorship and controlled his people through lies. He cut off Ferra from the other colonies by proclaiming off-worlders as terrorists. Then the Doctor turned up, defeated him and set Ferra free. Now the Prime Minister is doing the same, much to the dislike of the other colonies, prompting them to fight Ferra. Although Ferra is a large planet it is nothing compared to the full might of the Empire. To even have the small chance of winning the war the Ferras need a secret weapon of some sort. The Doctor again asks the Prime Minister what he is up to. Looking outside, the Doctor and Grace see cyborg-like soldiers being marched out into the open air. The Prime Minister calls them the Ferramenta. Outside, the Prime Minister explains them in detail. The Ferramenta are named after the old Earth Latin for “iron man”, and are just robots. They are the reanimated bodies of dead soldiers fitted with implants to make them more resilient and better fighters. The Ferramenta are being sent off to build defences on Ferra-owned planets. Examining them, the Doctor realises that the Ferramenta are not dead like the Prime Minister claimed, but very much alive and wanting to be free. The Doctor unwittingly overrides their programming, so they lose their robotic control and possess minds of their own. Now able to do something about their plight, the Ferramenta start a full-scale revolution. Meeting up with Will, the group decide to head to the laboratories where the Ferramenta were made to see if they can bring them back under control. Will does not go with the Doctor and Grace, as he must now stop the advancement of the Ferramenta. Whilst battling them, Will sets off an immense explosion to kill the Ferramenta who are attacking him. The Doctor’s trip to the laboratories yield no fruit, and he manages to lose Grace in the process as well. Will calls him up, checking he wasn’t hurt in the explosion. The Doctor appears to be about to apologise to Will for his earlier grudge, because of his bad experience with Will’s father. According to the Doctor Xavier Silvertongue betrayed him, he betrayed Will, he betrayed just about everybody. Will says that the Prime Minister seems to be following in his footsteps, leading the Doctor to head back to the politician’s office. Back at the office, now with Grace, the Doctor confronts the Prime Minister concerning the Ferramenta. The Prime Minister knew the Ferramenta were alive, but said they weren’t to placate the Doctor. The Prime Minister defends his decision to bring the Ferramenta back alive by saying it was a cheap alternative, because wars cost money and he can’t just keep paying soldiers to go off and die. Just then, the Prime Minister is informed of backup coming to Ferra to help fight the democratic rebels, however the backup is in the form of a ship full of tens of thousands of Ferramenta. The Prime Minister sees no danger in this, as he does not believe the Ferramenta have minds of their own. He is gravely mistaken, however, a point that is proved moments later when he is shot and killed by one of his creations. Grace and the Doctor flee. They find Will again just as dozens of Ferramenta ships attack Ferra. And they won't stop there. The Doctor surmises that they'll spread out across the stars. Humans have created colonisers before, why not so again? The Ferramenta attack brutally, casuing much death and destruction. Ferra seems to be doomed. Will realises the only thing he can do to stop the Ferrament is use an Osterhagen Key, whereby destroying Ferra and everything on it. The Doctor first attempts to talk him out of it, but eventually relents. The Doctor and Grace head sombrely head back to the TARDIS. The Doctor is feeling sombre because of the loss of the world of Ferra, but Grace reminds him that there are millions of world's out there because of good people like him and Will. After that the Doctor's mood lifts somewhat. Grace asks where they will be going for their next adventure. The Doctor is bemused at Grace's warmings to her kidnappers, and she grins, tell him he couldn't get rid of her if he tried. Cast The Doctor: Jaime Carroll Grace Thompson: Laura Massingham Will Silvertongue: Zachary Robinson '''(Jaime mispelled this as "Zackary" in the opening and closing credits) Prime Minister: '''Christopher Thomson Soldiers: Andrew Duffy Andrew Sutcliffe Zachary Robinson Christopher Thomson Adam Massingham Scientist: Nicole Shepherd Radio Voice: Neil Guzman Crew Writer: Akbar Sikder Director: Jaime Carroll Camera Operators: Christopher Thomson Aysha Carroll Script Editor: Akbar Sikder SFX Editors: Jaime Carroll Billy Treacy Jamie Pountney Music: Murray Gold Executive Producer: Jaime Carroll References - The Doctor says that Ferra's dictatorship is akin to Nazi Germany. - Grace's mobile phone ringtone is Run by Leona Lewis. The music video for this song was previously seen in Saving Grace. - Will's mobile phone ringtone is Assassin by Muse, although it is questionable as to why he would've heard of that song in the distant future on another planet. Only a very short snippet of it is heard onscreen, as instead of it being edited over the footage, it was played from Zak's phone when the scene was being recorded, hence it's lack of volume. - Will's red shirt has a Foo Fighters logo on it, along with a lightning bolt. Zak wore it as it was not dissimilar to Jaime's "Thunder Comics" logo. Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors - Grace changes her clothes between scenes. - Why are the Ferramenta so evil? The cyborginisation most likely process stripped them of their humanity, making them mad, but subservient. When the Doctor unwittingly frees them they can do whatever they want now, which is in this case exacting revenge on their creators and forming an empire. - Will's hair length shortens over time; in the scene in the car, his hair goes past his shoulderblades, but when they are running from the Ferramenta, it only touches the top of his neck. This is because when Jaime cast Zak to play Will, it was revealed to Jaime that Zak lived over an hour away from him, making filming days awkward to pick. The last scenes of the episode with Will, Grace and The Doctor were amongst the first to have been recorded whilst Zak was there. The rest of the footage that involved Will was filmed when he and Chris Thompson slept at Jaime's house for a weekend to film heavily. Continuity - The Doctor mentions the fact that the fobwatch still gives Grace flashbacks of his life although she isn't consciously aware of them, often spurting out random memories without thinking. (Series Two, Episode One: Saving Grace) - The Doctor makes several references to his adventures with the Cybermen; the Prime Minister says that the Ferramenta are, "just robots" to which the Doctor replies, "I can remember the last time someone said that..." -When the scientist states she was doing a bit of "upgrading" on the Ferramenta, the Doctor chides her for using that word. - The words "Bad Wolf" are seen as graffiti under the big "The Empire Needs You" billboard. - Although it is unclear, it appears that there is an object similar to the Time Lord's Untempered Schism in the background when the Doctor runs away from the billboard. - When the Doctor is introduced to Will, the boy says he is not worried about the negative implications of his surname, saying that 'Who should be so ashamed as to hide their own name?' This statement makes the Doctor snap at him. Links http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J76-RLnPOw